What a Farrier Website Needs

The route is the business

A farrier does not serve a radius; they run a circuit, visiting particular areas on particular days.

Adding one horse in the wrong direction costs an hour of driving for twenty minutes of work.

So the useful thing to publish is not a service area but which areas you are in and roughly how often.

That lets somebody in a place you visit fortnightly know they can be fitted in, and somebody outside it know not to ask.

The questions that arrive by phone

• Do you come out this way.
• Are you taking new clients.
• What do you charge for a trim.
• How often do you come back.
• Do you do corrective work.

The second is the one that matters most and is almost never answered on a site. A farrier with a full book who says so plainly saves everybody a call, and one taking clients who says so gets found by people who assumed nobody was.

Say whether you are taking new clients

Which is the single most useful line on the page.

Horse owners moving to an area, or losing a farrier, ask everybody and mostly hear nothing back.

A line saying you are currently taking new clients in these areas, or that you are full but keeping a list, answers the question honestly.

Update it when it changes, which is a few times a year.

A farrier who is full and says so builds goodwill rather than losing it, since the alternative is not replying to messages.

Keeping a genuine waiting list is also worth something, since horse people talk to each other.

Publish the prices

Which is standard in this trade and worth being explicit about.

A trim, a front set, a full set, and roughly what corrective or specialist work adds.

Say whether there is a call-out or a minimum for a single horse, since that is what changes the figure for somebody with one animal rather than a barn.

Say the interval you work to, and what happens if a horse goes longer between visits.

Being clear about a per-yard discount, if you have one, encourages the multi-horse bookings that make a route work.

That whole page is five lines and removes nearly all the pricing conversation.

A worked example

A farrier had no site and worked entirely by word of mouth through two barns.

When one barn changed hands, half the work went with it.

They put up four pages: areas visited and roughly when, prices, whether they were taking clients, and a short page about their approach to corrective work.

Within four months they had replaced the lost work with private clients across the same route.

Most of them mentioned having searched and found nobody else who said whether they were available.

The site cost an afternoon and a domain.

Where the work actually comes from

Which the site should support rather than replace.

Barns, vets, and other horse owners produce most of this work, and the site's role is to be there when somebody checks you afterwards.

So a page naming the yards you regularly attend, with permission, is more persuasive than any description of your work.

The same applies to vets you work alongside on remedial cases, if they are content to be named.

Somebody given your name will look you up, and finding a real site with real areas confirms the recommendation.

That is the whole job for most of your visitors.

Qualifications are worth stating plainly

Since there is no licensing requirement here and owners know it.

Say what training you completed, what certification you hold, how long you have been shoeing, and whether you continue with professional development.

In a trade where anybody can call themselves a farrier, a stated qualification is a genuine differentiator.

Mention any specialist training in remedial or therapeutic work separately, since that is what a vet referral is looking for.

Keep it factual rather than promotional, which is the register horse owners respond to.

Emergencies need a clear answer

Which is a real category in this trade.

A lost shoe before a competition, an abscess, or a horse that has pulled a shoe with damage.

Say whether you attend emergencies, for existing clients only or generally, and what that costs.

Give the number to use and say what hours it is answered.

Where you do not attend emergencies at all, saying so plainly is more useful to everybody than silence.

An owner with a horse in trouble needs to know quickly who to try next.

Write for owners, not for other farriers

Which is the register that decides whether the site reads as approachable.

A page describing pathologies, angles, and hoof balance in technical terms impresses colleagues and tells a first-time owner nothing.

The same information written as what you look for and why is genuinely useful and gets read.

Owners are anxious about doing the wrong thing by their horse, and a farrier who explains plainly is the one they book.

Keep the technical detail for the page about remedial work, where a vet or an experienced owner is the reader.

The counter-case

Plenty of farriers need nothing.

A full book, a stable route, and two decades of the same yards is a business a website adds very little to.

Publishing prices also removes flexibility on difficult horses, which take considerably longer than easy ones.

And a farrier who does not want private clients at all should not build a site that attracts them.

In that case one page saying who you work with is sufficient and honest.

Say which areas you visit and roughly when, publish the prices, state plainly whether you are taking clients, and name your qualifications.

What to build first

1. Areas visited and how often.
2. Whether you are taking clients.
3. Prices for the common work.
4. Any minimum for a single horse.
5. Qualifications and training.
6. The emergency answer.
7. Yards you attend, with permission.

Step two is the line that does the most work, since the person searching has already asked four farriers and heard nothing from any of them.

Covering places you are not based in is covered in ranking in a town you do not have an office in.

Frequently asked questions

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